Opinions: Does the New Mac Pro qualify as a Workstation?

[wonderspark]

You go on to list a few compromises that bug you but then not any areas of improvement. In what way do you think the new design is better?

Good question.

Better
- Adding flash-based internal storage
- E5 CPU
- PCIe v3
- 4-channel RAM
- dual GPUs (if includes options from AMD *and* nVidia)
- Thunderbolt, HDMI and USB3
- 802.11ac
- Bluetooth 4.0
- Black, or darker anyway. I think that's cool.

Worse
- No PCIe slots, since TB2 is slower than PCIe today
- No internal drive space other than flash, of which there is only one card. Hopefully, it's large enough to partition.
- Sucking air from base that isn't lifted from surface = more dust
- Only 4 RAM slots
- Reduced number of compatible GPUs, if any others are even an option. New GPUs come out often.
- No option to update much of anything but RAM and the flash drive after you buy it = disposable technology
- Spinning design, which I believe will be very annoying to 'spin around' with more than a couple things connected. Just accept the fact that all your ports will be on the rear. My current Mac Pro has 30 ports total to plug into (25 on the rear and those five important ports on the front), but those few ports on the front sure are nice, and the weight of the case means I don't have to hold it steady while connecting things. The iTube will most likely require a hand on it to keep it from tipping over while connecting or disconnecting. (Very minor, but something people may not have thought about.)

Neutral
- Fans. I'm sure if one fan fails on the current box, it's just as much a problem as if the single iTube fan fails, so one fan is as good as several smaller. I do wonder how loud the one fan will be.

All the 'Better' changes could have been done in the current design. Very few of the 'Worse' changes could be implemented into the new design, unless they made it much larger. Ergo, design motivated by reducing options for people, and marketing it as 'more' when it is in fact less.

 

[subsonix]

Gamers do use MacPros. Or, plenty of Mac Pro owners are gamers. There are plenty of them in this forum.

Maybe, but I don't think it's that common as a gaming platform, but it's besides the point really because it's not what defines a workstation.

Four ram slots * 16 GB = 64 GB

Yes and four ram slots * 32 GB = 128 GB.

 

[flat five]

- Spinning design,

yeah, that's sort of a weird one.. also the lights that activate when moving it (though i can assume the lights would be a highly requested feature in an editing room.. but mark that down as a feature that i don't foresee as being an advantage to me personally..)

anyway, i wonder how many people will just have it facing what appears to be backwards (power switch &ports in the front)?

 

[Sun Baked]

I'm with him.

Some of the older unix workstations used to pack a lot of power in a tiny space, then the PC towers took over that they started breaking backs and caving in desks.

If you gave this to a person just unboxing their brand new NeXT Cube, they wouldn't think of it as not being worthy of being called a workstation.

We may not like that they tube has replace the cube, but it will be worthy of taking its place on the desk.

Now if you are a jaded PC user ... nothing less than a hernia will satisfy you.

 

[Tesselator]

anyway, i wonder how many people will just have it facing what appears to be backwards (power switch &ports in the front)?

I'm gonna have the ports directly facing this:

so I can stretch the cables taunt, hang my laundry, and compute while it dries!

 

[flat five]

I'm gonna have the ports directly facing this:


so I can stretch the cables taunt, hang my laundry, and compute while it dries!

lol. good thinking
⬛〰####

 

[tomvos]

There's also been some discussion in another thread as to whether the NMP qualifies as a "Workstation". Then there have been questions such as "Well, what exactly is a workstation?". The definition is somewhat subjective, and can obviously change over time.

I think the definition of workstation made sense in a time when we had to distinguish between a workstation and a home computer. A home computer was less powerful and lacked options which you could only have in a workstation.

But today this separation makes no longer much sense. I can use a Mac Pro like a home computer for gaming. Or a I can use a Mac Mini like a workstation for whatever task I want to achieve. Admittedly, some tasks might hit a limit earlier on a Mac Mini than they would on a Mac Pro, but ultimately every machine will hit limits sooner or later.

So when I think about a workstation, it's a computer to get a defined work done in a reliable and timely fashion. Depending on the work you are thinking about, the new Mac Pro is a workstation or not.

Personally, I think the nMP can fill the role of workstation quite well.

 

[theSeb]

A workstation is the station where I work (or dry my clothes, if I am Tesselator). To try and put some definition into what makes a computer a workstation, based on one's prejudices and beliefs, and then argue what is a workstation and what isn't seems pointless and futile.

 

[slughead]

Well, no. "Workstation" should typically signify Xeon or Opteron and ECC RAM. It should also signify a Workstation grade graphics card but those lines are a little blurred sometimes.

So there can't possibly exist a "workstation" without ECC RAM and a Xeon or Opteron? That seems a bit narrow. I think you're just drawing arbitrary lines here.

What about the PowerMac G5, was that that workstation? It had neither ECC nor a Xeon/Opteron.

I guess there weren't any Mac workstations prior to 2006!

Are you seeing how silly it is to draw distinctions yet?

 

[slughead]

"larger number of memory sockets" actually half as many as 2012 so unless you compare it to a MacBook, this is a fail

My haswell gaming PC has 4 RAM slots.

Hooray, I have a workstation!

 

[jdiamond]

Why so against TB?

Anyway, that's just my brief definition of a workstation and why I don't believe the New Mac Pro falls into the workstation category. Forget about adding GPUs via TB. In engineering that's what we refer to as a kluge.

I admit that TB is inferior to PCIe in two ways - lower aggregate peak throughput (1 TB2 lane is equivalent to about 5 PCIe2.1 lanes), and having your devices be external is not as convenient or aesthetic. So the raw connection bandwidth and in housing convenience is less.

But do your devices need more bandwidth? The Mac Pro has dual GPUs internally already, and most hard drive RAIDs I've seen can't get more than a few gigabyte/second.

Since you remember the old days, you probably remember that computers often had to be ungainly and distributed, with the hard drives in a different rack than the rest of the computer.

To me, what makes it most like a workstation is that it runs Unix, so in that sense, an iPod Touch is also a workstation.

 

[benwiggy]

The first computer I heard described as a "workstation" was the Acorn Cambridge Workstation in 1983.
20Mb hard drive and 4Mb RAM. 32016 CPU.

Computers are getting more and more powerful at a rate far exceeding the rate of the increase in the demands made on them.
In 2003, Apple presented the new G5 PowerMac as "the world's fastest computer", "twice as fast as DualXeon workstations".
http://www.apple.com/uk/pr/library/2003/06/23Apple-Unleashes-the-Worlds-Fastest-Personal-Computer-the-Power-Mac-G5.html
That scores less than 2000 on Geekbench. The 2013 MBP -- a laptop -- scores over 12000. Even the venerable current 12-core MacPro gets 22,000.

Toy Story was made in 1994 and, according to Jobs, it took "three hours to make each frame on the fastest computers money can buy". (NeXT "workstations".) Think how much powerful a MacBook AIR is than those machines.

The tasks for which you need a "workstation" are being eroded every day. Photoshop is no longer the great test of hardware that once it was. My MacMini can handle pro-level audio work, and laughs at print production.

You can bet your hat that Apple has looked at what tasks are still going to require serious hardware into the future, and what they can bring to that market. No doubt there will be some people whose market is not served, who will need to buy another brand -- or even go to an iMac or Mini.

If you need obscene amounts of horsepower in an Apple environment, then the MacPro IS going to give you what you want. Yes, you may need to buy some other bits too.

Call it a workstation if you like: it WILL do your work.

 

[Gonk42]

Historically workstations were so-called probably to differentiate them from mini-computers and main-frames as much as to differentiate them from home machines which in the early days probably didn't even have disk drives.

Workstations aren't only about raw power but also about robustness and ability to run for long periods and produce consistent results hence EEC ram, professional rather than gamer graphics cards and the ability to run robust operating systems such as Unix.

On those fronts the New Mac Pro still qualifies.

But I'd say that workstations are also major investments which normally are designed for an extended life cycle and part of this is the option to upgrade and expand processors, ram, hard-drives. Additionally as workstations need to fulfil different roles a degree of flexibility in configuring them is needed.

On the above, the New Mac Pro is not a standard workstation - it is essentially a pre-configured workstation which if it meets your needs is good but if it doesn't you'll have to either compromise or look elsewhere.

 

[Tesselator]

So there can't possibly exist a "workstation" without ECC RAM and a Xeon or Opteron? That seems a bit narrow. I think you're just drawing arbitrary lines here.

What about the PowerMac G5, was that that workstation? It had neither ECC nor a Xeon/Opteron.

I guess there weren't any Mac workstations prior to 2006!

Are you seeing how silly it is to draw distinctions yet?

I don't think silly. The definitions of all words change with usage. Some change radically. Many computer terms like "Workstation" change as technology changes. In the past usage was much more volatile because the communities were such a small subculture (Computer geeks of the 70's and 80's). I don't think it's silly to notice how the living English language works.

Currently a workstation is comprised of workstation grade components. Who decides which ones are, the manufacturers mostly. What are the main components of modern computer architecture?

CPU,
RAM,
GPU,
Storage,
PSU,
Case,
KB/M,

Where there are no workstation grade distinctions for a particular component like KB/M and case, we have to assume commonality between Workstation, Desktop, Server, and Enterprise-Server (AKA Heavy Metal) installations.

So to know if a computer station is a Desktop or Workstation the main topic in this thread, or even how much of a Workstation it is as it seems the lines overlap occasionally, all we need do is identify the components. The whole is equal to the sum of it's parts.

Is there a workstation classification among CPUs? Yes, commonly they are known: Xeon and Opteron. Currently speaking, without one of these it would be much more difficult to claim the system were a Workstation grade machine. The CPU type is currently (probably) the most important component in distinguishing classification.

Is there a workstation classification among types of Memory systems? Yes, commonly it is known: Memory features like ECC define it. Currently speaking, without ECC it's more difficult to claim the system is a Workstation grade machine.

Is there a workstation classification among graphic subsystems (GPUs)? Yes, commonly they are known: FirePro and Quadro are two such. These both use ECC memory BTW. Currently speaking, without one of these it would be much more difficult to claim the system were a Workstation grade machine.

Is there such a classification for storage? I dunno for sure but I think not. There is enterprise class storage for both solid-state and traditional drives but lower spec drives seem to share a place in Desktop and Workstation machines. Some people think it's the other way round and Enterprise class drives share server and workstation space but desktop grade drives don't belong in a workstation. Due to the differing schools of thought on this it's hard to lend classification to a machine via it's storage subsystems.

PSU, Case, and KB/M are components where I at least see no distinction so if someone knows of such I'll leave it to them to bring it to light here. In the distant past in pre-286 tech days there were cases considered to be workstation grade in form-factor. These were known as full-tower cases. But soon after this changed as Sun Microsystems and SGI established systems which everyone agreed were the d'facto Workstations of the day - and many of them were in a "desktop" or "mid-tower" case.

I mentioned setting and tasking of a machine as well. A lot of this is carryover from past definitions of the term "Workstation" but also can be due to contemporary tasking. It's entirely proper for a person working in cubical workstation space or environment to refer to his or her computer as a workstation computer just as it would be for them to refer to their phone as their workstation phone. This would be especially true if the computer were the main work component of that workstation space. I think this usage needs to consider context more-so but again there is some definition overlap here where either definition lends weight to the other.

 

[slughead]

Is there a workstation classification among CPUs? Yes, commonly they are known: Xeon and Opteron. Currently speaking, without one of these it would be much more difficult to claim the system were a Workstation grade machine.

Okay, so any computer NOT running one of those two processors can't be a "workstation?" So basically you're saying that the Asus Z87-WS can't be classified as a "workstation" motherboard if it doesn't have a Xeon in it. This, even though it has FOUR 16x PCIe slots, connectivity for 12 SATA drives, Dual Gigabit LAN.

What if you stuck 4 quadro's in it?

I call BS.

Is there a workstation classification among types of Memory systems? Yes, commonly it is known: Memory features like ECC define it. Currently speaking, without ECC it's more difficult to claim the system were a Workstation grade machine.

Two questions:
1)This LGA1150 Motherboard which calls itself "workstation class" supports ECC. What if I put an i7 in it? Would it cease to be a workstation?


2) Does the computer have to have the CAPABILITY of running ECC or actually be RUNNING ECC? What if You put 8 Non-ECC chips in the nMP, would it still be a workstation?


Oh no, the lines are blurring what will we do!?

I fully expect the next post to be "okay, okay, so it's only a workstation if it has 'Pro' or 'workstation' in the name and I specifically call it a workstation. There."

 

[azentropy]

Classifications do not matter much with me, but with the removal of internal storage options and expansion options it no longer fits MY definition as a workstation.

 

[phoenixsan]

Not.....

in the traditional way, maybe. But I had read here in the Forums and elsewhere people contemplating the use of Pros, based in the new form factor, as nodes in wide computing arrays.....

 

[Tesselator]

Okay, so any computer NOT running one of those two processors can't be a "workstation?" So basically you're saying that the Asus Z87-WS can't be classified as a "workstation" motherboard if it doesn't have a Xeon in it. This, even though it has FOUR 16x PCIe slots, connectivity for 12 SATA drives, Dual Gigabit LAN.

What if you stuck 4 quadro's in it?

I call BS.

You are changing my words in order to call BS? Not fair! Listen to the language I'm using. I said "it would be much more difficult to to claim the system were a Workstation grade machine.". Please don't change that to read: "impossible".

Obviously, if you mix desktop and workstation components you have a hybrid.

Classifications do not matter much...

True. Like any class definition they just serve to form reasonable expectations. For example with a classification of Aves (Bird) we can reasonable expect a few things about it such as: feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic, egg-laying, vertebrate, and so on. That's all it is. If you wanna wear a feathered coat and call yourself a bird that's OK with me. And this isn't to mention that a tomato classifies as both a fruit and a vegetable. Is that important? Not much... to me the taste, pesticides used, and it's genetic origins (GMO or not) are more critical.

 

[tuxon86]

Two questions:
1)This LGA1150 Motherboard which calls itself "workstation class" supports ECC. What if I put an i7 in it? Would it cease to be a workstation?

32gig ram max... And the 16x slot amount to the 8x8 or 8x4x4 like standard pc mobo... So no, in my opinion, this isn't a workstation class mobo, just a standard pc board that let you use ecc or xeon class as an option.

The Asus Z87-WS is a bit better gpu wise with 16x16 or 16x8x8 but is still limited to 32gb of ram. Again, an excellent pc mobo but it fals short of a real workstation mobo.

You really have to go into the LGA2011 instead of the pcie starved LGA1155.

Try instead:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157327
or
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131971

 

[flat five]

Classifications do not matter much with me, but with the removal of internal storage options and expansion options it no longer fits MY definition as a workstation.

but somehow a computer which has most of it's data being stored down the stairs and around the corner would fit your definition?

i mean that's what i would pretty much consider a workstation.. one person's desk in a larger overall setting.
if you're a sole proprietor/freelancer, your workstation can be anywhere.. my workstation is even on airplanes at times.

 

[Tesselator]

So no, in my opinion, this isn't a workstation class mobo, just a standard pc board that let you use ecc or xeon class as an option.

IMO I don't think we can attribute DT, WS, S, ES classifications to a motherboard. Maybe the chipset it has I dunno but not the MB itself. To me a MB is like a pair of shoes. It supports he other components (feet to head, clothing, etc.) but they don't define them. And seemingly MBs offer very little in the way of a classifiable component themselves.

I think the WS tag some manufacturers add to them is a designation of potential. It can be used to build a WS - but also a DT or even a hybrid system.

 

[slughead]

32gig ram max... And the 16x slot amount to the 8x8 or 8x4x4 like standard pc mobo... So no, in my opinion, this isn't a workstation class mobo, just a standard pc board that let you use ecc or xeon class as an option.

So, again, why does the mere "CAPABILITY" of running ECC or, in the case of your arbitrary classification, more than 32 GB RAM make it a workstation. This still has almost as much PCIe bandwidth as my 5,1 Mac pro (Since it's PCIe 3.0 instead of 2.0), by the way.

And what about if I run a LGA2011 i7 with full bandwidth, is that a workstation? If it is, that contradicts what Tessalator said.

Again, if I run a LGA2011 XEON with non-ECC memory, Is it a workstation or not? Does merely having the slot work with ECC or non-ECC make it Workstation? How does that make sense?

My point is that you and Tesselator are using arbitrary criteria (or in Tesselator case, no strict criteria) to say what classifies as a workstation and what doesn't.

This is ridiculous.

 

[azentropy]

but somehow a computer which has most of it's data being stored down the stairs and around the corner would fit your definition?

i mean that's what i would pretty much consider a workstation.. one person's desk in a larger overall setting.
if you're a sole proprietor/freelancer, your workstation can be anywhere.. my workstation is even on airplanes at times.

No. Again to me systems (not just the new Mac Pros) stopped being "workstations" when they became dependent on external storage solutions (wether by external drives or network storage). Now of course the Mac Pro with is "limited" internal storage still will have a might greater storage capacity than the workstations I used in the 90's and 2000's, but the work we did then could still be contained on internal drive systems. Even with the max of what the Mac Pro might offer (maybe 1tb of flash/ssd) isn't close to the storage requirements I would have now and far short of the ~16TB of internal storage the previous Mac Pro could handle.

Again it is all meaningless labels - like is the iPad a PC?

 

[tuxon86]

So, again, why does the mere "CAPABILITY" of running ECC or, in the case of your arbitrary classification, more than 32 GB RAM make it a workstation. This still has almost as much PCIe bandwidth as my 5,1 Mac pro (Since it's PCIe 3.0 instead of 2.0), by the way.

And what about if I run a LGA2011 i7 with full bandwidth, is that a workstation? If it is, that contradicts what Tessalator said.

Again, if I run a LGA2011 XEON with non-ECC memory, Is it a workstation or not? Does merely having the slot work with ECC or non-ECC make it Workstation? How does that make sense?

My point is that you and Tesselator are using arbitrary criteria (or in Tesselator case, no strict criteria) to say what classifies as a workstation and what doesn't.

This is ridiculous.

I'm not arguing about ECC but about the quantity. Anyway in pro application you often need way more than 32GB and in case of scientific application ECC is a must.

And I don't think it's possible to run 16x16x16x16 with a non Xeon CPU even on those board as the i serie cpu don't drive that many pcie lane.

 

[slughead]

And I don't think it's possible to run 16x16x16x16 with a non Xeon CPU even on those board as the i serie cpu don't drive that many pcie lane.

I don't agree. According to this article, LGA 2011 can do 40 lanes regardless of being xeon or not.

If you want to say there's no definitive line between workstation and non-workstation, but that there are boxes that are very clearly workstations and very clearly not, I'll agree. However, making arbitrary distinctions is ridiculous. There are many machines on the borderline, I might argue the nMP is one of them.

Edit: BTW, Not even Xeon can do 4x16 lane PCIe 3.0, it can only do 16,16, and 8 (total of 40 lanes).